Trump gives grim assessment on Nancy Guthrie case weeks after she went missing: ‘Boy, it’s so crazy, so bad’
Police believe the 84-year-old was abducted from her Arizona home as she slept more than two weeks ago
President Donald Trump has given a grim assessment of Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance after she vanished from her Arizona home more than two weeks ago.
Nancy, the 84-year-old mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie, was last seen at her home in the affluent Catalina Foothills, outside of Tucson, on January 31. Police believe she was taken from her home while she slept.
Police are yet to publicly identify Nancy’s suspected kidnapper, but have shared video of a suspect wearing a ski mask and gloves who appeared to have tampered with the missing woman’s front door camera on the morning she is believed to have been abducted.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One Thursday, Trump, who has expressed support for the Guthrie family amid Nancy’s disappearance, said, “Boy, it’s so crazy, so bad.”
“I didn’t like when they were talking about going after the pacemaker, and you know, before they even started going after it, they’re coming and reporting it,” the president said.
“So if, in fact, they could do it that way, the person would say, ‘Well, I’m not going to let that happen,’ right? So bad things would happen,” Trump added. “It’s a very sad situation.”
NewsNation reported earlier this week that authorities used a “signal sniffer” device attached to a helicopter to try to detect Nancy’s pacemaker. Nancy’s pacemaker was disconnected from an app on her phone the morning she went missing, according to authorities.
Trump has threatened the death penalty if Nancy is found dead, telling the New York Post Monday that there would be “the most severe” consequences for those responsible.
Authorities are desperately trying to find Nancy, who needs medication for her health condition.
“Her health, her heart is fragile. She lives in constant pain. She is without any medicine. She needs it to survive. She needs it not to suffer,” Savannah said in a video posted to Instagram days after her mother’s disappearance.
Between the FBI and local officials, the reward for valuable information in Nancy’s case has grown to more than $200,000.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department said Tuesday authorities are “looking into investigative genetic genealogy options” to identify possible matches to DNA evidence collected, according to reports.
The department announced on social media Tuesday DNA from a pair of gloves found two miles away from Nancy’s home “did not trigger a match” in the FBI’s national database and “did not match DNA found at the property.”
Most of the DNA profiles in the database are from convicted criminals. Genealogy databases from companies such as Ancestry and 23andMe can open up the pool of DNA profiles to police. But these companies do not voluntarily give up customer information, so authorities would have to go through a legal process to obtain it.
Earlier this week, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos told the Associated Press authorities are working with Walmart management “to develop further leads” as the backpack the suspect was wearing in the doorbell video was sold exclusively at the retailer’s stores.
Savannah and her family have yet to give up hope on finding Nancy, even offering to pay for her safe return following reports of unverified ransom notes.
“I wanted to say to whoever has her, or knows where she is, that it’s never too late,” Savannah said in a video posted to Instagram Sunday. “It is never too late to do the right thing.”
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement shared with The Independent Thursday, “Currently, several hundred personnel are assigned to this case from various law enforcement agencies and are actively reviewing thousands of tips.”
Bookmark popover
Removed from bookmarks